The Riyadh-based investment specialists said the Palestinian stock market was the biggest loser, sliding 4.5 percent, as eight Arab markets went down, three advanced and one was unchanged.

The Hermes Financial Index in Egypt rose to 9,391.09 points, an increase of 4.4 percent over July 1, mainly due to a 9.5 percent boost to Mobinil stocks following higher profits in the second quarter, BFA said.

The only other winner on the week was the Saudi NCFEI all-shares index, the most capitalised in the Arab world, which climbed 0.6 percent to 2,094.12 points despite volatility in oil prices.

Ahead of next week's Camp David summit and amid uncertainty over peace negotiations with Israel, the Jerusalem index of the Palestinian territories slumped to 260.89 points.

Jordan's AFM index weakened to 140.38 points, a 1.9 percent decline, due to

renewed selling pressure, Bakheet said.

The CSE index in Morocco and Kuwait's KSE both lost 1.6 percent, falling to 712.21 and 1,393.30 points respectively. The fall in Kuwait was attributed to the slow pace of promised economic reforms, while blue chips fared badly in Morocco.

In Lebanon, the BLOM index lost 1.3 percent to close the week on 631.36 points after Solidere which is in charge of downtown reconstruction announced it will not pay any dividends for 1999.

The NBAD index in the United Arab Emirates was also down 1.3 percent and closed on 2,637.94 points under selling pressure from investors.

Elsewhere in the Gulf, the BSE index in Bahrain and Oman's MSM slipped by 1.1 percent and 0.3 percent respectively, closing in Manama on 1,919.05 points and on 210.12 in Muscat.